


What lies beyond

by FlaviasMIND



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Flavia's MIND, What lies beyond, autobiografy, introspective
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6789655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlaviasMIND/pseuds/FlaviasMIND
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Today is Flavia's birthday, she turns thirty.<br/>She likes to think she did a lot in this period of time, she had many experiences, both good and bad ones, that have forged her essence and led her to be what she is now"... "Precisely for this reason, and on the day of her birthday, Flavia decides it is time to bring forth a range of situations and themes that have helped turn her into what she is, doing a foray over the barrier and extrapolating the highlights of what has led her to erect it.<br/>There are 30 topics, as many as the years she turns today and they will help both she and those who read this paperwork to read her better, to understand some of her choices and to see the "real Flavia", hiding behind the brilliant rational person."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Today is Flavia's birthday, she turns thirty.  
She likes to think she did a lot in this period of time, she had many experiences, both good and bad ones, that have forged her essence and led her to be what she is now.  
She's always thought of being "different" and on several occasions she tried to build a dimension in which she could feel like being herself, where there was no discrimination, judgments, betrayals.  
For Flavia, living life is more complicated, because she has a sensitivity out of the ordinary that leads her to suffer much; she also loves solitude and she is not very good at socializing, although when she finds the right people she is able to open up and show what she usually keeps hidden behind a wall.  
Because Flavia raised this wall to avoid feeling the pain.  
What you see of her is only an infinitesimal part of what lies beyond.  
Protected by a robust barrier are her feelings, her emotions and everything that is not safe showing to the rest of the world. The creativity, the ideals, the dreams, her selfless ingenuity and the desire to express her artistry.  
She hasn't decided consciously to entrench herself, it is a consequence of a series of events that convinced her inner self that this is the best solution, not to suffer.  
So, who meets Flavia sees a rational person, with the head on her shoulders, which can be trusted without exception. This is also because of her strong sense of duty and other mechanisms that we will discover later.  
Only a few people, the most sensitive ones and those who can read beyond what is shown, can see what is behind this.  
A free spirit, that has been repressed because it is necessary, because children can't do strange things, because art does not let you eat and the society doesn't accept people with the head in the clouds and that can't find their exact location in it.  
For this reason, in Flavia there is a constant duality between the rational and the emotional part, that are in diametrical opposition.  
And she only get by what she wants and what she has to, asking herself always a little more than what she can.  
As time passes, getting back in touch with what's behind the wall has become increasingly difficult; so much that only a few events with a heavy emotional contribution, allow in certain situations this to crack, however creating a flood of irrationality that leads her to make extreme and often dangerous choices.  
Those who know her well know that Flavia lives in her own world, where there is respect and there is love and where the pain is always relieved by strong feelings.  
Because this world that she built is designed for her, for her endless creativity and her deepest desires for acceptance and love, where no matter how you dress, what job you do or why you do one thing instead of another; the important thing for Flavia is being able to express what she has inside, her special powers, her compassion and the desire to let others know who she is, what she wants and her preferences.  
She knows, though, that as long as there is this wall, she will not be able to show her inner universe to the rest of the world.  
Precisely for this reason, and on the day of her birthday, Flavia decides it is time to bring forth a range of situations and themes that have helped turn her into what she is, doing a foray over the barrier and extrapolating the highlights of what has led her to erect it.  
There are 30 topics, as many as the years she turns today and they will help both she and those who read this paperwork to read her better, to understand some of her choices and to see the "real Flavia", hiding behind the brilliant rational person.


	2. Matrix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An excursus on Flavia's childhood.  
> "Flavia does not remember much of her childhood, but some memories have remained in her mind; among these, she perfectly remembers that as a child she could fly."

Flavia was born in the month of May. Her mother likes to recall that that year in February, while she was waiting for her with a huge belly, for the second consecutive year it had snowed. Where they lived almost never does snow, so that event in particular must have a specific connotation in the history of her life.  
That same year, and just a few days before birth, there is the explosion of a nuclear power plant, another peculiar circumstance.  
Flavia is the second and last daughter of a quiet middle-class family. Born and raised in a small suburb of a big city, she lives a particular childhood.  
Her sister, seven years older than her, immediately shows a strong jealousy against her; so much that Flavia undergoes her retaliation, with just a few months of life as pinchings, various bothers and innocent questions to her mother, like "But if I break her an arm, will she be in pain?".  
Flavia obviously does not remember anything about it, she heard about it in the various sessions of memories that are typical of all households, or almost all.  
When she is two years old (and this will remain in the history, because even now everyone remembers the little girl proclaim from the rooftops "iaia boni has twos years"), she suffers a trauma at a subconscious level, due to the alleged abandonment of the mother. Alleged because it really is not that, but therefore seen that way by her very sensitive subconscious.  
That year is the year of her sister; first comes a bronchial pneumonia, and her parents decide to treat it at home. Obviously all their attention is focused on the eldest daughter, and here is where the first hints of neglect are felt. After that, there is a knee operation, in a distant city; Flavia in this case is left to the home of his paternal grandmother; last but not least, she receive communion.  
The combination of these factors leads to a double result: first, the abandonment of the mother is metabolised and stored; and then, the start of a relationship with her sister made of a strange rivalry, but more about that will be revealed in more detail later.  
Flavia has always been a very sensitive child, a kind of genius in many cases, and after a series of studies on the subject, probably part of the generation among the indigo children and the rainbow ones.  
For those who do not know what I'm talking about, it comes to children with special skills (empathy, creativity, willpower) or supernatural (telepathy, clairvoyance and others) and a strong spiritual inclination. They are also very intelligent, intuitive and intolerant towards the authorities, often suffering from attention-deficit and hyperactivity syndrome.  
Flavia does not remember much of her childhood, but some memories have remained in her mind; among these, she perfectly remembers that as a child she could fly.  
She has an out of the ordinary empathy, that leads her to empathize with the situations experienced by others, being they real or not.  
For this reason she spend a lot of time watching television, going through the stories that pass by as if they were her life. She also likes to play and impersonate the various subjects, in 'question and answer' dialogues and situations of which she is the only representative, as well as the only spectator.  
For a specified period of time she is left alone, free to increase her potential and creativity, until her mother realizes that there is something strange, because her little girl is always alone, she doesn't like to talk too much, she isolates herself from the talking made at the dining table and as soon as she can, she goes back into the great hall where there is the television.  
The assumptions are many, maybe she doesn't like the idea that her father during dinner (the only opportunity they have to meet, given that the man works all day) only relates to her sister, because in her he has put all his expectations, aspirations and desires.  
When the mother becomes aware of this dynamic, she begins to shift more and more attention on Flavia, but now she is so accustomed to solitude that the continued pressures of the woman to know how the day went and what did she do at school bothers her, preventing her from being closed in her own world and finally express herself.  
The perseverance of her mother eventually got the better and she finds herself trying to fit into a family that, down to that moment, she has never been actively part of.  
This doesn't, however, reduce the discomfort she feels when she tries to relate to others, including children like her.  
Surely the fact that when she is a child in the community where they live she is the only one of her age, along with her best friend of the time and a boy a year older that never played with them, doesn't help.  
At school, the situation is no better and Flavia tries in every way to draw attention to herself, this is a gift of the lack she feels and has felt in the family and that inevitably also spreads outside, in the relational life.  
It is to put emphasis on this research of the approval of others, possibly reflecting the one she would have from her family, but she has never felt, because it will be an important theme throughout the first half of her life until now.  
The great age difference between her and her sister makes sure that she almost ignores her and often the initial jealousy returns in their relationship, because if Flavia feels abandoned, her sister feels the weight of all the expectations of the family, although Flavia will realize this only many years later.  
The friends of that time can be counted on the fingers of one hand (which will continue to be like that, following the saying "few but good").  
Her best friend of the community, the only person she can go out with and play every afternoon, with a family history that sees the mother sedated because she suffers from constant seizures and an alcoholic father. Often for absurd reasons, her parents for varying periods forbid they to meet up.  
The classmate and relatively neighbour, with whom she spent some of the best moments of her childhood living in the same district of what would later become a great friend of her adolescence.  
The classmate and best friend, so that even their mothers are friends and therefore they can see each other frequently, and weave a strong friendship, although the cultural environment from which they come are completely different.  
All others, classmates, sports mates and peers in general, are just a series of meteors in the life of Flavia, that led her to experiment with different experiences from time to time, to make comparisons between what she likes and what not.  
She tends to rely too much on the people and to be open with the majority without malice or bad intentions, for this it always hurt when they show themselves for what they are.  
Her air of always having her head in the clouds brings her mother to worry about the bad guys on the street, so she begins with the recommendations.  
Don't walk slowly and with a distracted air, do quick steps and always give the idea that you are going somewhere and you rush to reach it, she tells her all the time.  
But Flavia is like that: some call it distracted, other dreamer; she simply looks at the world differently and scrutinizes it in any gesture, be it a simple walk or an interaction with whoever is next, to see what reaction brings every action and learn and grow.  
It's with the beginning of school relationships, with the rigid schemes of the system that cage her, that Flavia sees that her world always shrink more, oppressing her, and without understanding her need to be alone to be able to relate to others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the first chapter! It is about the childhood of Flavia and what she felt.


	3. Hermitage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Flavia sees the isolation that comes from diversity.  
> "Perhaps for this reason, she feels like a rare bird, something strange and different. Because she isn't the only one to do this kind of things, but she feels like she's the only one to sense its weight. To feel this unsettling loneliness that convinces her that she is 'different', 'strange'."

Flavia, as a child needs her space to be alone and think (or rather 'metabolize' always new information), to be able to decide when to stay in company and when to isolate herself.  
For that she's always seen in a strange way by those around her, and her desire for isolation is transmitted and misinterpreted, leading others to put her aside, ignoring her or treating her with suspicion because she's different from other children, deeper.  
Thus, what began as a need will soon be transformed into a constraint.  
Staying alone becomes her everyday life, starting by her own family and then continuing in school, in sports environments, extracurricular activities (which she plays with desire and dedication because she loves doing and always learn new things) where she remains secluded in the shade, never giving her opinion to not risk saying the wrong thing and being ghettoized, without realizing that this very behavior brings her to self-segregation and it doesn't allow people with whom she relates to, to understand what she really thinks and wants.  
This probably stems from her desire to be accepted, achieving the opposite effect, because the human mind considers weak and malleable someone who does not express its will, and maybe it is so, and that's why although Flavia tries one time and another, she's not good in interpersonal relationships.  
Or maybe it's because she has never complied with what the society has always required. She doesn't care whether something is considered to be for male or female, if she likes it she does it, or she buys it, or she sees it. Perhaps for this reason, she feels like a rare bird, something strange and different. Because she isn't the only one to do this kind of things, but she feels like she's the only one to sense its weight. To feel this unsettling loneliness that convinces her that she is 'different', 'strange'.  
And when you're little it's not easy to hold the weight of diversity, especially if you are not supported by those who more than anyone else should do it, family.  
Flavia feels she has nothing in common with those around her, as if she came from another planet, and maybe it is so because she doesn't feel at home anywhere, she doesn't feel complete and yearns to reach her dimension, that in childhood was so easy to create, her imagination was enough; but that going forward with the years has become increasingly difficult to find, it be for the patterns that force her, for real life that frames her with its rules about what is right or wrong, good or bad or simply she is beginning to succumb to those who are known as social rules, though she does not know how to interpret and often misrepresent them, finding herself in unpleasant situations without wanting and having to justify to the behaviors she judge right, but that for the rest of the world are not.  
It is not easy to balance, especially when she is a young woman in search of approval; the more she tries to get it, the more life puts in front of her tests that discourage and make her believe that it is better to surrender to the inevitability of things and be carried away by the stream that is created to enclose individuals in society.  
Flavia is alone even when she's surrounded by people, because she feels to 'not' belong. And that is what let her to always move further, seeking independence and the dimension where at last she may be only what she is, when in front of everyone she pretends.  
Moving forward with time, she becomes increasingly good at it, so much so that she stops feeling so inadequate and begins to understand certain mechanisms that regulate social life; although in the end she always falls into a generalized lack of something that brings her with inevitable certainty to change course so she can continue to look for what she has lost, or maybe never really had, but that she yearns with all her being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second chapter about Flavia's isolation.


	4. Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's the relationship that Flavia has with knowledge and understanding.  
> "Her mind is constantly moving and it is not easy to keep up with her when she decides to embark on a new project. But this often leads her to not be able to finish the things that she starts because they are too many all at once."

The relationship between Flavia and learning is very special. She likes studying, reading, learning new things and she is very competitive both with her comrades and with herself, always testing her limits.  
She doesn't need to spend hours and hours on the textbooks to learn the basic concepts, she just need to read a couple of times the key paragraphs, emphasizing the fundamental concepts and write them in the form of diagrams or summarized in a notebook because they remain stored in her head.  
But there is to say one important thing, which is that Flavia is a person that tends to idle; She never does more than the necessary to achieve her purposes and often this sloth leads her to not completing some of the tasks she has set for herself, also because of her pursuit of perfection that most of the times leads to the unability to reach it and then to the abandonment of the project.  
She likes knowing everything she can about what surrounds her, from actuality events to general culture through the narrative, the history (especially the one told by those who lived it in the first place).  
At the age of nine she had read most of the books of her home library, composed not only of the classics of world literature, but especially of thrillers and mistery, that sharpen her brain and keep her imagination trained on several fronts. She eats books at the rate of one a day, isolating herself from the rest of the world to dive completely, soul and mind, into the story she is reading; instead the body is usually sprawled on the sofa or anywhere else that allows her to relax and get away from reality.  
The stories of her grandmother take her to live many of the events that have seen her city as the protagonist of the war, with almost fantastic stories of rescues of partisans, deportations of ethnic minorities and bombings.  
At school she finds the assigned duties always easy; even when the mothers of her companions discuss with teachers and professors about the difficulty of some exercises, Flavia has already done the task, and most of the time just remembering what it is said in the classroom by teachers, without the need to do more research (which would be a waste of time for a lazy girl like her).  
Flavia has always had a soft spot for the arts, so much so that during junior school she gets excellent grades in music lessons, where she learn to play the flute and keyboard, and in those of arts, where she start a production of drawings and watercolors that make her excel in the subject and make her parents proud, so much to bring them to hang a large amount of them on the walls of their home.  
But when, at the time of choosing the path for higher schooling, she speaks about the possibility to choose that kind of studying address, it is reminded to her that with art she doesn't eat, she should look for something more serious, that allows her to find a good job once she finishes school.  
For this, in the end, Flavia decides to enroll in one of three language schools in her city. The program is so broad as to encompass most of the subjects of the classical studies, scientific and adds three languages chosen by the student.  
That's how Flavia learns and deepens the study of english, german and spanish, with excellent results and satisfaction.  
In the same period, she approaches music, studying classical guitar and later beginning to attend to singing lessons that will lead her to discover one of her main passions.  
After finishing high school, and with an accomplice her science teacher who make her love his subjects, she decides to continue her studies by enrolling at the biology faculty of the first university of her city, getting a scholarship to merit and income.  
There she also learns a lot and she is able to store more and more information, although at that time her rationality leads her to not fully understand the randomic science that is Physics. In fact, precisely because she can't pass that exam, Flavia is forced to abandon her studies because she loses the scholarship and her mother, who by then was separated from her father and strives between one job and the other as a commercial, can not afford to pay the full tuition fee.  
Although she no longer attends a conventional school, Flavia continues to increasingly assimilate new information, participating in cultural activities such as theater and cinema, through the internet she discovers the world of writing and thus she begins (or if you want to be picky, resumes, since as a nine year old child, she began writing a series of poems) to externalize part of what it is on her through this vehicle.  
In addition to the school career in itself, she participated in several courses of different nature, a programming course in Java, graphic design and web design, language courses to obtain certificates, she's even learned Russian and Japanese as a self-taught; she attended theater lessons and together with her dog she played canine education courses, which allowed him to obtain the diploma as exemplary canine citizen.  
Her mind is constantly moving and it is not easy to keep up with her when she decides to embark on a new project. But this often leads her to not be able to finish the things that she starts because they are too many all at once.  
The thing that always impresses her about what she does, is the ease with which she achieves results.  
But this has a downside, because when she has a topic that is not so simple like the others, she tends to set it aside instead of committing to learning it.  
For Flavia every novelty is a new challenge to take the leap of and to deal with unveiled face, and this not only in the studying but in all aspects of her life.  
Whatever she reads, any transpose information is stored in her brain to be used at the appropriate time for any need.  
Probably for this reason, or something similar, Flavia is a good interlocutor; she knows when to speak and when to be silent, what topics are the congenial ones and what are best to skirt the issue and she does so nonchalantly and without fear.  
She likes to strike up committed conversations and to quibble over the great themes of life and the universe whole, however, she doesn't mind having a frivolous quiet chat with a friend, talking of this and that in front of a cup of steaming tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third chapter is about the relationship between Flavia and knowledge.


	5. Perception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flavia has a self-perception that because of the past is not very positive.

Flavia has a self-perception that because of the past is not very positive. Her self-esteem has never been very high, because she always think of not being up to what she must do.

This could be because of the famous neglect that has felt, because she think she may not be enough and thus be left behind; or it could go back to her not to feel part of this dimension and in a certain sense, not feeling up to what is required to live in this world today.

The possibilities are many, but the result is clear: the way Flavia perceives herself and perceives who is outside is completely different from that to which society accustoms us.

For this reason, it is difficult for her to relate to those who are around and fully subject to the tenets of the latter.

Since she is small, she doesn't know how to approach other children to ask them to play, she is introverted and shy and never clear on what she likes and what she wants. It's not easy for her to explain what she has inside and when she tries to do it she is not understood, so she starts thinking of being somehow wrong, having to change what she is to be accepted, perhaps because no one wants to stay close to her because she is strange, she is not affected by the games that other children play or gossip of the other girls or subterfuges of people to achieve their goals.

Not knowing how much of what she thinks is right to disclose under the laws of good comradeship, often at the end she doesn't express anything, and she keep it all for herself, frustration, anger, fear and all the other emotions she feels are slowly caught in an implosion that freezes and doesn't enable her to defend her cases and her rights.

To find acceptance, Flavia resolves to do things that in a normal state of consciousness would never even think of, although she doesn't like them and in many cases she even sees them as constraints.

She hopes that favoring the will of the people to which she wants to draw attention, they eventually become her friends and then continues stubbornly to conceal her true self behind the barrier and to show others something different, something Flavia doesn't really feel like being and doesn't even want to become. Yet she is there doing what she is told to, hiding from her true essence to agree to others willing to use her for their own purposes, in most cases without even realizing that she's being exploited for other people's wishes.

Some consider this behavior the one of a person who puts too much faith in the others, without discernment. Flavia thinks rather differently; she is convinced that in the others there is a good part, that something that is hidden behind a mask is worth to be discovered and brought to light, but she has not the right tools to make that happen, and then she finds herself engulfed by appearances without being able to externalize what she found below.

Perhaps she is guilty of presumption, thinking of being able to help someone to get rid of his own fiction when she is the first to hold on hers, for fear of not being understood.

However, the others always see in Flavia good fruit to fleece, a person to be exploited for their own purposes and leaved when she is no longer useful to achieve the goal they have set. This pattern is repeated constantly in her life, so that now it can be said that she got used to it.

"Do good and forget" is a motto that Flavia has done hers, because she knows she can't claim anything from those around her, only at most a little understanding, that most of the time she misses. She stopped to have expectations, because she knows that it's not healthy in the first place for herself and then for relations with others.

She continues in her way, though occasionally she falls into that seeking approval that leads her to hide and to create a surrogate that can be fine for those who faces. Because it is good to wear masks for every situation, but she can not easily show what's hidden behind, and that is perhaps the most beautiful and most vivid part of her.

If for any reason this part comes out, invariably in her returns the sense of not belonging, of isolation; because when to those that are always used to see one side of the coin, is shown another aspect, they tend to move away, not more recognizing the something familiar to them, the comfort zone that is established in interpersonal relationships.

That's how most of Flavia acquaintances slowly move away, leaving her alone and with an increasingly rooted feeling of abandonment that backs the childhood trauma that will not be resolved that after a long time up.

**Author's Note:**

> Flavia's NOTES.
> 
> Hello everyone!  
> Updates to this story will take place every 10 days, more or less, at least initially. Website updates will be weekly, every Sunday.  
> The moment I finish the writing of all the chapters, updates will become more rapid.  
> So barring unforeseen circumstances, the chapters will be published regularly.  
> I recommend in any case to frequently visit the website www.flaviasmind.com/en (where you can subscribe to the newsletter) and social networks to get more updates on new stories and curiosities and entertainment.  
> Once again I thank all the people who will read this story and who'll review it! Remember that the greatest satisfaction of a writer is know to be followed!  
> See you next time! Flavia.


End file.
